Databases store data as items in structures, such as directory based trees or relational tables. Transactions are typically processed using a two phase locking approach, in which a lock is acquired on an item at the start of a transaction and released at the end of the transaction (when the transaction is committed). This allows concurrent access to various objects in the database. Typically, locks are maintained in a shared lock region, which frequently must be accessed. For example, each time a lock is acquired or released, the shared lock region is updated. Accessing the shared lock region too frequently can become expensive. In addition, too many locks can lead to lock overflow. A more efficient way of acquiring and releasing locks is needed. In particular, a solution that improves the efficiency of finer granularity locking and improves the throughput of write transactions would be useful.